


Cold Water

by darkendeavours



Category: Oxenfree
Genre: (with each other), Boys Kissing on a Beach, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Kissing, Everyone is friends, First Kiss, M/M, Post-Edwards Island, References to Drugs, Slow Burn, Smoking, Sort of? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 01:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9468668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkendeavours/pseuds/darkendeavours
Summary: After Edwards Island, everyone decides to re-do the beach party, sans weird radio signals and portals to ghostly dimensions - in which Alex and Clarissa are sort-of friends, no one is quite sober, and Jonas happens to have a crush on his new step-sister's best friend.





	

They’re sitting on a beach. Not _the_ beach, of course, no. Edwards Island is a long distant memory, even though it only happened a month ago. A week ago? Jonas can’t remember. He doesn’t particularly want to remember, either. Everyone else seems just as content to forget, too. So, no one talks about it. They just decide to do the night over. All five of them, at the beach, with the fire pit and the beers and Truth or Slap. Nothing’s different.

Of course, though, everything’s different.

Because Nona and Ren are lying on a beach towel together, staring up at the stars, Ren going on about some story from middle school that no one’s really listening to. It’s okay, Jonas realizes, because Ren might be babbling on and on, but at least it gives everything a sense of normalcy. Ren had insisted that Alex bring the radio, so that they’ll have some music to listen to while they’re all getting drunk. Jonas was the one to force her to leave it at home.

And then there’s Alex and Clarissa. It’s nice, to see them kind of getting along now. They’re not friends, exactly. Jonas thinks that maybe they’re reliving Michael’s life through each other, that they were the people closest to him and that they’re using him as a common connection. Jonas never says anything, though. After everything that had happened between them, he figures that Alex and Clarissa are better off like this. They’re sitting on the sand next to each other, drinking beer, making idle little small talk whenever Ren stops talking for long enough to get just a little bit higher.

Despite the obvious formation of pairs within their little group, Jonas is perfectly fine sitting to the side, content to watch things be normal. He takes comfort in the fact that he can see everyone right in front of him, that for once, everyone is together and _not_ possessed. He lays down on the beach when he’s a beer and a half in to the night, thankful that his beanie is keeping most of the sand out of his hair.

An hour passes. Maybe more. Probably less. Jonas has noticed that his sense of time is becoming more warped lately. He props himself up on his forearms, and sinks back in to the sand as he does it. There’s a distinct lack of Nona and Ren, but Alex and Clarissa don’t seem overly concerned by it. Jonas asks them, his newly developed paranoia getting the best of him, just to make sure that Alex and Clarissa actually remember Ren and Nona. He’s not sure whether to be relieved or horrified to hear Clarissa say that they left to get some private time together.

Clarissa is almost disgusted by it. Alex doesn’t seem too happy about it, either, but Jonas knows she always wants to support Ren no matter what.

Jonas finds himself missing Ren’s voice, because at least it filled in the gaps of awkward silence. And when Nona was there, at least she and Clarissa could talk. But now it’s just the three of them, and no one really knows what to say.

Alex breaks the silence first; Jonas is thankful for that. She talks about Michael, about how he would have loved to sit around the fire and drink and tell scary stories until the sun came up. Clarissa seems to find something nostalgically pleasant about it. Jonas recognizes a bonding moment when he sees one. He takes that as his cue to go and have a smoke somewhere down the beach, to give them the space they need to talk about Michael with each other.

Jonas walks farther than he means to, because when he turns back around to see his footsteps in the sand, the fire looks like a little spec of glowing light in the distance. It gives him the chills in a bad way. But, on the bright side, he can have a cigarette without four different people getting on him about the whole lung cancer thing. And being on his own, so far away from the others gives him a little more perspective. Because standing there, in the dark, he _does_ feel alone. He feels different than when he’s with Alex and Clarissa and Nona and Ren. He might be the odd one out, but it only proves to Jonas that he does have some sort of family here. Even if the thing that brought them together was something no one talks about.

It’s impulsive, when he sits down in the sand, stretching out his legs so that the water soaks his shoes. But Jonas likes it, the way the water is cold, makes the cuffs of his jeans cling to his legs. He blames the need for sensation on the beer and a half. He sits and smokes and feels, not in any particular rush to either crash Clarissa and Alex’s mood, or to have to sit in the afterglow of whatever Ren and Nona had gone off to do. And maybe it’s the beer, or the crash of the waves that are too loud in his ears, but he doesn’t hear the footsteps on the sand until they stop right next to him.

“Uh, hey, I know you’re like, wasted and all that, but you probably shouldn’t be sitting so close to the water,” Ren says, dragging out the ‘o’ in ‘probably’. Jonas looks up, his eyes having to take a second to make Ren’s body out in the dark. And then he takes the cigarette out of his mouth, and blows the smoke out in front of him. “I barely had two beers,” Jonas half chuckles in reply. “Definitely not wasted.”

Obviously, Ren and Nona had gotten back to base camp. Jonas tries to rationalize why Ren followed him all the way out there, across the beach, without actually wanting to ask why. If they had wanted to do something, the group of them, Alex would have been the one to come bring him back. If Ren and Nona had been trying to give Alex and Clarissa space, Nona would be here now, too. Jonas has to double check that he hasn’t missed her walking up behind Ren.

“So, you’re just sitting out here all by your lonesome? I mean, I know we get on you about smoking and stuff, but I think this is a little excessive,” Ren says, turning to squint back at the faint glow of the fire that tells him how far he actually came. There’s something about Ren’s use of the word ‘we’ that makes Jonas feel slightly warmer inside.

“Alex and Clarissa were talking about Michael. That’s not really my space to be in, y’know? And I didn’t mean to come out this far. It just kind of happened.”

Ren chuckles, presumably at the latter part of Jonas’ words, and then sits down right next to Jonas on the sand. He’s not quite as tall as Jonas, so his feet don’t get quite as soaked from the tide, but they still get wet. Ren doesn’t say anything about the water again. In fact, Ren is quieter for longer than Jonas has ever heard him be. It’s unsettling.

“Uh… So. You and Nona, huh?” Jonas says, a little awkwardly, a little tensely. The implication that he’s talking about Ren and Nona’s disappearance from the fire is there. But he’s a guy, and so is Ren. And this is normal guy stuff to talk about, right? Jonas isn’t even sure.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, yep. Me and Nona. Just, y’know, doin’… _stuff_. Haha.”

Jonas would never consider himself any kind of expert on girls, for more reasons than one. But he’s relatively certain that that’s not the answer someone gives when they’ve just done it with their girlfriends. Ren is always sort of awkward, in Jonas’s opinion, but that just sounded more awkward than usual. If nothing else, Jonas is curious now.

“Hey, c’mon, it’s just me. Seriously, I’m not gonna judge you for anything.” Which was _technically_ a lie. Jonas had judged Ren for just about everything and anything. Mostly concerning the drugs. Mostly in Harden Tower. That wasn’t the point, though. Jonas wanted to be friends with Ren. Wanted them to be on good terms. Better than good terms.

Ren seems to consider Jonas’s words, but not for very long. Because Ren’s had a few drinks too, and even though most of the magic from the brownies he’d eaten a while back are starting to wear off, he’s still high enough to be considered not-sober.

“Well, okay, uh, how do I say this…” Ren started, trailing off as he started to put some serious thought in to how he was going to phrase his next words. “It didn’t really work out. Me n’Nona. I mean, like, we’re totally cool as friends. She’s awesome and nice and all of that. But I think I heard something about relationships that start in dangerous situations never really work out?” It’s the closest Jonas has heard to anyone talking about the island. Jonas doesn’t press for all of the dirty details, mostly because he doesn’t want any of them. He breathes out a long breath of smoke, but it sort of turns in to a sigh half way through.

“Sorry, man. That’s rough. I know you two were really in to each other,” he says, because he really is sorry. Like Alex, he wants Ren to be happy. Well, maybe not exactly like Alex. Ren shrugs it off, and oddly, he doesn’t seem overly bothered by it. Jonas guesses that their break up was mutual, and doesn’t want to know _exactly_ what happened that lead to it.

“Nah, it’s better like this, anyway. Pretty sure Clarissa gagged every time she saw us kiss,” Ren laughs, and Jonas laughs a little, too. In the end, after a slow burn, Jonas flicks what little is left of his cigarette on to the sand and leans back on his palms. It’s nice, just sitting on the beach with Ren. The last time they’d been alone together, they’d been screaming at each other in the Tower. But just like Alex and Clarissa, Jonas was confident in saying that things were good between him and Ren now.

“Hey, can I like, ask you a question? And you totally don’t have to answer. I mean, it could be a mini Truth or Slap kind of thing,” Ren says, and Jonas knows that he just wants to ask a question, but is too worried about Jonas’s reaction to the question to ask it unconditionally. Considering how the last game of Truth or Slap went, Jonas just wants Ren to ask the question. “Yeah, sure. Go for it, I got nothing to hide,” Jonas answers easily, because it’s true.

Ren hesitates before he speaks up again, moving his feet idly in what looks sort of like a nervous habit. Jonas dislikes how anxious Ren seems, because if Ren is a little bit tipsy and a little bit high and _still_ nervous about asking Jonas a question, then it’s a pretty serious question that’s going to probably require a pretty serious answer. And Jonas knows that Ren probably won’t ask about his mom, so it’s even more concerning to Jonas that he has no idea what direction Ren’s mind is headed in.

“Would you date me?” Ren asks, quickly, before he loses his nerves. “I mean, not like _would you_ , but like, am I datable? ‘Cause I’ve never had a real, actual relationship before. And this thing with Nona lasted for like, what, uh…” Ren trails off because he can’t remember how long ago Edwards Island was. Jonas doesn’t finish the sentence because he can’t remember, either.

He still doesn’t quite understand what was making Ren so nervous about asking this particular question, but Jonas knows he has to answer it carefully. He’d give too much away if he wasn’t careful about how he spoke. And Jonas liked what he had with Ren, now. He wasn’t going to fuck up what they’d slowly built just for a marginal chance at getting something more.

“Well, you’re nice. You’re good at having conversations. You remember, like, everything. And you’re a pretty good looking guy so, yeah, I’d say you’re datable.” Jonas adds a little shrug at the end to feign indifference.

Of course, Ren locks on to one specific descriptor, the one that Jonas hadn’t thought about before saying. “Oh ho ho, so pretty city boy Jonas thinks I’m good looking, huh? I’m flattered,” Ren grins wide. Jonas can practically see the whites of Ren’s teeth in the dark. “Hey, if you have a crush on me or something, you can just tell me.” He says it teasingly. He doesn’t mean it completely teasingly. But Ren’s never been good at serious talks, especially about relationships and stuff. Jonas has never been good at that, either. Even just talking to Alex about the whole new step-brother/step-sister arrangement had felt awkward and uncomfortable to him.

Jonas is glad that they’re in the dark, because he can feel his face heating up. The tips of his ears are probably bright red, but the beanie covers them, so it’s not a real problem. He rubs the back of his neck, staring out over the water. Sometimes he thinks he sees the red signal light at the top of Harden Tower in the distance, even though they’re not at a beach that faces the island. It makes his stomach sink.

“I might.” Jonas says it so quietly that he’s not even sure he’s said it out loud. But he’s thinking about all of the things he said to Ren before, all of the anger from their situation that he projected on to Ren, all of the things he didn’t really mean to say. Jonas wants to take their relationship far away from that place. And, in the morning, when the awkwardness of Ren’s inevitable rejection washes away, Jonas will blame the admission on the beer.

Ren doesn’t say anything for a while, and Jonas hopes that Ren just didn’t hear him speak, and isn’t staying silent out of shock or disgust or whatever. And when he does speak again, Jonas thinks he stops breathing for a few heartbeats. “Well… Same.” Ren isn’t sure if Jonas meant what he said. And, in the morning, when the awkwardness of Jonas’s inevitable joke-turned-serious fades away, Ren will blame the response on the weed.

 Jonas doesn’t think about anything else. He doesn’t think about being a rebound for Ren, or about this only coming out of neither of them being a hundred percent sober. For the first time since the island, Jonas feels something, a sensation as clear as the water filling up his shoes. And that sensation comes out of Jonas kissing Ren. It’s nothing much, in the grand scheme of kisses that they’ve both shared with other people. Other girls, other guys. There’s no tongue, or wandering hands, or shirt-pulling, or moaning. Jonas tastes like smoke and beer; Ren tastes like chocolate and weed.

It’s a kiss that ends too soon for the both of them, even if they’re both gasping for air by the end. It’s a simple little kiss, yeah, but it means something to them both. Something deeper than either of them are willing to deal with for the moment. Because neither of them are sober, but both of them feel good. A phantom pain in Jonas’s chest leaves him, an ache he hadn’t realized was there until it was gone.

Neither of them say anything. But Ren slides his hand in to Jonas’s, and Jonas laces their fingers together. They sit in the sand until Jonas can’t feel his feet anymore, until the cold water numbs his toes completely. Ren is the one to pull them up, and Jonas stands with him. It’s nice, to have a good memory of the beach. They walk back, practically stepping right in their own footprints from earlier, and neither of them let go of the other’s hand.

Clarissa is the first one within ear shot. She’s telling some kind of ghost story by the fire. Maybe a story Michael told her. Nona looks rightfully terrified. Alex is laughing.

Ren laughs softly, too. “Fuckin’ ghosts, huh?” It actually makes Jonas smile.

“Yeah. Fuckin’ ghosts.”

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops this was way longer than I meant it to be! Also, I wrote this at 2am, without a chance to edit it, so my apologies for any errors! Oxenfree owns my ass right now tbh, so I might write more for this fandom in the future!


End file.
